What is life?

* Before I start, this may upset some people, these are entirely my views, I’m not saying what I say is correct.
Today was the first time I have been to see my nan since she has moved into a nursing home. I knew it was going to be hard, but how hard it exactly was could never have been explained to me or got me mentally prepared. In one way maybe seeing a dead body would have been easier to process.
My nan have been ill for quite some time with dementia, I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve not seen her since the end of May, this was when she knew she has seen Z before, she knew that little boy, he is a lovely little boy. You couldn’t have a conversation with her, havn’t been able to for a while. But seeing her in her own house kinda made more emotional sense. So seeing her today, she wasn’t my nan. If I got to the mess she was in today I wouldn’t want to be here. My first thought was she looked like a terrified toddler being left in a place they had No idea of. Everytime Z made a noise he frightened her, I do not want that, I do not want to be terrified in my own house as its not the house I was brought up in, she asks to go home all the time, not the home I know, not my nans home but her home. Her home she was brought up in with her parents. I’m hoping I’ll have many years ahead yet, and that some time down the line, someone will be legally allowed to put me to sleep, like I would do to a sick animal. My dad said as we were leaving, ‘if I get to that state, put me in a home, forget about me until I am dead, remember the good days.’ Now I’m torn, part of me wants to go back and see this old woman who was my nan, who would once do anything in the world for me, who now don’t have any clue who I am. Not just me, her own children. The thought of never remembering Z brings tears to my eyes. But a part of me don’t ever want to see that building again, the one who is keeping my nan a prisoner for her own safety. ( of course she’s not being cadged in or anything, and she’s being watched 24/7 which is what she needs.) Will I regret never going back? If I do what mess would I be in? Will it get easier to see? I honestly don’t think it would.
What I do know is it’s a sick, cruel twisted disease, they say cancer is, I’ve seen family members die with cancers, they have pain medication to kinda numb everything, to put them in a haze. Yes lets drug them till they die, we’re not allowed to kill them we’ll just make them sleepy. But there isn’t anything they can give my nan, they can’t numb the terrified feeling of not knowing anyone, of not knowing what a TV is, thinking back 80 years ago she wouldn’t have had a TV. So advances of everything must be so confusing, so terrifying, yet we can’t do a thing to help them. How is keeping someone alive in that terrified state right? Yea, let’s put these poor people on dialysis if their kidneys are failing, can they really see a cure coming in the next few months to mend the broken dying brain?
No, I’m not God, I can’t even pretend to be, I cannot make the choice to kill innocent people, and I get that by allowing people to legally kill another human is wrong. It would open up no end of amounts of court cases, but for my nan, she don’t have a life, she is put onto another planet without all her family. I couldn’t even imagine that.
I do think, as a human, as an adult with so called human rights, I in my 30’s with my brain still alive and working well, should be allowed to legally put pen to paper stating, the day I no longer remember anybody, can no longer dress myself, is the right time for my life to end. So be it somebody giving me a drink myself , or an injection. I just hope this world by the time I ever and if I ever get into that state has changed. For my dignity and my sons dignity. It’s too late for my nan now.
Before I upset anybody, I don’t mean oh let’s just kill all the disabled people or all the old people, that is NOT where I’m coming from or what I mean. I just believe people shouldn’t have to suffer. If I left my pooches in a mess without getting them to a vet, I can be prosecuted, yet, we can leave family members in that mess.
So, remember the good days, my nan was a wonderful lady, I remember her helping all the old people when I was a kid, yea some of those old people were younger than her! I remember going on a Saturday and walking miles, with only a few mints in her pocket, we never took a drink! There’s so many good things I could mention, but she’s not dead, she can’t remember them, but I can. I remember the fun my sister and I had with our cousins, the walks, the wooden spoon, the late Friday nights watching brook side and the toast! My nans toast was the best toast ever!

It’s such an awful disease and seems to be getting more common, I wonder what we were all polluted with to cause this? Almost everyone I know has had one family member suffer like this. Only you can decide but whatever you choose don’t beat yourself up. She doesn’t know you, if you visit you are doing it for you not her. If you don’t she will not know.

This is a very emotive subject, but I am in total agreement with you.
I have worked in care homes for adults with dementia and it was hell on earth. There were elderly people there in the last stages if dementia who had gone beyond the stages of confusion and fear. They couldnt speak, or move. Led in bed all day, they actually looked like corpses. To my mind it was inhumane keeping someone alive like that.